Baby Steps
by katelynnsmusings
Summary: After leaving Litchfield, Lorna and Nicky are put in an uncomfortable situation involving a divorce, a baby and learning to give up on what they'd expected their lives to be. Otherwise known as, Lorna's pregnant and Nicky's stepping up to the plate. Post season 4, ignoring season 5 canon.
1. Chapter 1

If you had asked Lorna Morello how she imagined her future, it was never quite like _this_. She had imagined herself in pretty a white dress and walking down the aisle to the man she loved, reveling in the fact that all eyes were on her and basking in unlimited adoration for a year or so before they began working on their three babies. It didn't involve a pending divorce or prison or, hell, a girlfriend, but somehow that was what life had given her and with Nicky Nichols half passed out on the bed beside her, one hand on top of her swollen abdomen and her forehead pressed against the bump that held her child, Lorna really wouldn't want it any other way.

"Hey kid, I know I ain't your daddy but I love your mommy and he's a shit bag, so you're kind of stuck with me." Nicky was mumbling, fighting sleep as Morello's fingers worked though the untameable mess of her hair in languid strokes. It had been one one _those_ days - the kind that never seemed to end no matter how much you craved crawling in to bed with love of your life, pulling the comforters up to your head and passing out. The morning had been smooth, though hectic given the way Lorna had fussed over whether the baby would co-operate and let them find out the sex this time. Nicky had kind of hoped it wouldn't happen - there would have been a sweet victory in being able to tell Lorna that her kid was just as stubborn as her. After that, while Lorna had had a quiet (and relatively nausea free compared to recently) day and spent most of it buying girl-specific clothes, Nicky had to clock in to her 12-9 at a shitty little grocery store.

She… had not been impressed when she came home pissy and tired to Lorna all wide eyed with a can of paint in hand, asking if she could possibly paint the nursery tomorrow since Nicky had the day off and Lorna was in no condition to paint herself. ("Lorna, we're not painting it. I'm not doing that. You were talking about wanting to get a bigger apartment, I'm not painting anything.") (… She had ended up agreeing to paint it after Lorna's puppy eyes wore her over twelve minutes later.)

"We found out you're a girl today. What a fuckin' mess I've gotten myself- hey!" Nicky paused and Lorna gots worried for the twelfth time that day until the wild haired woman pulled her head away from Lorna's abdomen and furrowed her eyebrows at the unknowing fetus within. "Did you just kick me in the head? I wasn't calling you the mess, just… All of this."

"I was never meant to be no one's mom y'know? Don't worry, I ain't bailing on you." Her tone got more serious, and with the way Nicky flinched right after, Lorna can only assume that the baby has once again kicked her in the head. "My mom did that to me and… Well, I imagine you'll grow up completely aware of how much of a fuck up I've been. We've been. Your mama's fuckin' crazy and I'm just as bad. Man, we're signing you up for the rough life," she let out a sigh, "we don't want that, though. We're goin' to do our best I swear. I just… I'm worried our best won't be enough for you…"

"We're going to do our best, Nicky. And if you're scared… If-if you don't want to be here I'm not forcing you, y'know, you didn't sign up for this." Morello interrupted and looked at Nicky with soft eyes, and the wild haired blonde gave her the slightest hint of a smile as she shuffled her body around so that she could gently push Lorna on to her side.

"I'd be an ass to change my mind now, Lorn." Nicky wrapped her arm around Lorna over baby bump, and the little girl kicked where her hand landed. "'Sides, kid likes me."

"She does," Lorna said as she snuggled in to Nicky's hold and even to this day she's still amazed that she managed to end up here. Anybody, any reasonable person… It had been one thing to show up at Nicky's door when Vinnie kicked her out, as much as she still doubted it a part of her had known that Nicky would take her in. To let her stay after finding her crying on the bathroom floor with a pregnancy test in hand a week later…

Okay, that was plausible but this, holding on to her months later and loving her daughter like the baby was her own, loving _her_ like she'd never given Nicky reason after reason to hate her…

"If you name her Maria I'm leaving you," Nicky mumbled as a joke as she pressed her lips against the brunette's neck in a soft, quick good night kiss and let sleep win.

Lorna didn't know what she had done to be so lucky, but somehow things have worked out and she will do anything to hold on to the life that Nicky Nichols wants to give her.


	2. Chapter 2

"You did it. You really did it babe." Nicky Nichols sits beside a bed, her arms supporting the head and rear of the tiniest human being she had ever laid eyes on. Hell, she didn't know they could even get that tiny, yet here she was with one of them in her hands. How was she not supposed to break this thing? (Nicky Nichols and children, especially infants, had never been a combination she thought she would enjoy… ever. Somehow this was the exception.)

In the bed Lorna's turned on her side to face the blonde and the baby, who already has a head full of hair as dark as hers. A sheen of sweat still covers her face, and her eyelids are half closed - half tired, half watching the love of her life hold _their_ daughter with the kind of admiration that she didn't think Nicky could give anyone but her. She was though, she is. Nicky found another person she'd kill for as soon as that baby was born, handed to her with the cord still attached. The cord _she'd_ cut moments after when she handed the baby off to Lorna - what a fuckin' scene that was. Never in her life had she thought she would be here until this became a part of her life.

She wouldn't change it for anything though, she thought as the little girl's tiny brown eyes fluttered open. She brought her pinky finger close to the baby's face, where her little hand sat against her chest, and coaxed the baby, her daughter, in to grasping on to it. She smiled and then looked over to Lorna.

"We're really doing this."

Lorna nodded. "We're really doing this, Nicky. And thank you for that. I dunno where I'd be right now if it wasn't for you."

"In a ditch somewhere, probably. Dead." Nicky shrugs and then lets out a little laugh. Really though, they both knew that her presence had been what kept Lorna together throughout her pregnancy. Now, hopefully, she'd still be enough to keep her together - neither of them were exactly qualified to be decent parents.

"Funny, Nicky. Real funny." Lorna deadpans and then closes her eyes, looking away from Nicky as she lets out a little laugh. She then puts her weight on to her arms so that she can adjust her position and sit up. She lets out a hiss of pain as the movement engaged exhausted muscles, and then she put on a little puppy dog face. "Can I see her?"

Nicky cocks an eyebrow. "You? Hold a baby? Sounds like a bad idea." She's joking and Lorna can tell but she just went through fifteen hours of labor and she's not really feeling in the mood for Nicky's brand of joking.

"Give me the baby." Lorna's dead serious and Nicky laughs as she hands the kid over to her other mother, incredibly careful. God, she was gonna break the kid before they even left the hospital - she was sure of that.

"So… what do you want to name her?" They hadn't broke that topic yet, the litle girl was just a couple hours old. Sure, they'd talked names before but now… Well it was time to decide for real. Nicky had her preferences sure, but the hairy little snatch goblin had just come out of Lorna so now wasn't a time where she was going to make any choices.

"You know, we talked about namin' her after Red, 'cause she was so good to us while we were in Litchfield." Lorna looks like she's in pure bliss, her eyes solely on her child as she talks to Nicky. "So I'd like to call her Maria Galina, I think. It's good. And I _know_ you don't want me namin' her Maria 'cause you hate West Side Story but it's such a nice name and she just looks like a Maria-"

"Okay." Nicky cuts Lorna off before she can start rambling, letting out a small chuckle as she shifted her chair closer to the hospital bed. Her thumb stroked against Lorna's scalp and all she could think that this was just… perfect. Somehow she'd found someone she'd be a mother for, love unconditionally, wake up every day next to - and by some miracle she'd actually gotten to have that opportunity.

* * *

It's three in the morning when Maria's screams wake the women from their bed, and Nicky lets out a groan as she uses her feet to rouse Lorna in to waking up and getting out of bed.

"It's your turn this time," she says, words slightly slurred by her half asleep haze. Lorna just groans back, pushing Nicky's legs off of her.

"No it's yours, I changed her a couple hours ago." Lorna very clearly doesn't wake up but Nicky knows her daughter's cries well enough to know that this time she's hungry and, well, Lorna was the one who had what she wanted.

"She's hungry, you have the boob juice, go feed her so I can sleep." It's so domestic and a year ago she never saw herself being here, but even through wake up calls at every hour she knew she wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Well, in this moment she would be - asleep, rather than awake.

"Ugh." Lorna pushes the covers off of herself and accidentally smacks Nicky in the face in the process, resulting in the blonde giving her girlfriend a light shove.

As soon as Maria stops crying, Nicky's back out like a light.

* * *

"Hey Maria, mommy's home!" As soon as the door closes behind her, Nicky can hear Lorna announcing to their three month old that she was back. All the stress she'd felt was instantly replaced, and she walked in to the living room after taking her shoes off to see Lorna topless on the couch with Maria held against her shoulder. She's rocking slightly from side to side, soothing the child, and Nicky can't help but grin.

"I know I was gone a long time, and I love that you're ready for me, but we can't really fuck with the baby right there, Lorna. She's gonna have to go have a nap first." Nicky grins and Lorna snubs her, smiling in the process.

"Haha very funny." She looks exhausted and Nicky can only imagine. She loves her kid, she really does, but it's exhausting trying to raise a kid and she has mad respect for the woman who's spending all day every day raising the baby that she'll one day get to raise in to… well, something much better than her, hopefully. "It's just easier to keep the top off, she goes at em like twice an hour she hasn't been latching well the last few days."

Nicky gives her girl a sympathetic frown as she plops on to the couch beside her, and then she holds her hands out. Lorna adjusts Maria in her hands and the baby lets out a little whimper as she's pulled away from her mama's flesh, but as soon as she can see Nicky she begins to smile. That's the latest milestone in her development and Nicky can't help but grin when she sees her daughter's little gummy grin.

Somehow she'd adjusted. She didn't think she had it in her to be a mother but, well, the last three months had proven her wrong. She didn't even feel like she'd break Maria as soon as she touched her any more. It was wonderful.

It was even more wonderful having Lorna as her co-parent.

* * *

Maria's almost five months old when she finally meets her godmother and namesake, and Red's pretty much ecstatic to hold the infant as soon as Nicky and Lorna come in to sight of the restaurant she's trying to get off its feet. As soon as they're in she locks the place up, luckily no one was around, and the afternoon is spent sitting at a windowsill table, passing Maria from woman to woman.

"My girls have their own girl!" Red's grinning as she begins to cook something up for dinner. Maria's feeding, the recently started incorporating bottles in addition to booby time, and Nicky's got a hold of her. Just a couple weeks ago she'd got to feed her own daughter for the first time and she didn't think she'd ever find such joy in something simple.

Dinner's amazing. Red's amazing. That day's amazing.

They make a point to stop by Red's place much more often after that.

* * *

"I'm going to scream if she doesn't stop crying soon." Lorna's in tears as she walks in to the living room with a screaming seven month old. She's bouncing gently in hopes of making the child calm down. "Nothing's working, Nicky. I've tried everything. Bathed her, changed her, fed her - booby, bottle, spoon. She just won't stop. It's driving me crazy."

Nicky's been home a total of five minutes and work had been rough that day but immediately she gets up from where she was sitting and takes the baby out of Lorna's hands.

"Go have a shower, babe. Or go for a walk. I'll look after Maria, you go look after yourself." She can tell Lorna's beat, and she can tell that Lorna doesn't want to just walk away from this, but at the same time the brunette's eyes are filled with relief. She walks off towards the bathroom, and as soon as the water starts running Nicky has sat down on the couch with Maria.

She offers her her favourite toy, a bottle, a pacifier. When nothing calms her she loads Maria in to the stroller and leaves the apartment, heading to the nearby park. She still doesn't stop screaming. She can tell everyone around hates her right now, she's given that "shut that baby up" look to more than one person in her life, but she can't be assed to give a shit right now. Maria's still crying half an hour later, and Nicky gives up. She loads the kid back in to the stroller and begins to go home.

Maria falls asleep three minutes in to the trek back and Nicky sighs, glad that she'd gotten the crying to stop some how. Now came the real test - trying to keep Maria asleep (or at least not screaming her head off) while she tried to get back in to the apartment.

* * *

Before they knew it, a year had came and gone and suddenly the tiny little human Nicky had admired such a short time ago was picking herself up off of the ground. Neither of them had gotten to witness these first steps and both of them hated that they'd missed out on such an important step - figuratively and literally.

The next time the little girl, who's hair flew in chocolate brown wisps around her head now, took a step was on her birthday, though, and they both got to see it that time. Sitting on opposite sides of the living room, each with a gift in hand, Maria toddled from Lorna to Nicky, falling in to the blonde's laugh. She caught her with a laugh and then grabbed her under the pits, raising her in to the air. Maria giggled as Nicky praised her, a wide grin on her face.

The first year was over, but it was the first of many - and they said the first was the hardest. Really, though, there'd been nothing hard about loving this little girl and her mother - from day one. Nicky had come this far and there was so much farther to go - and while she still worried, Nicky was sure that Maria was going to grow up with what she didn't: a family that actually loved her. It was dysfunctional at times, so gay they couldn't even drive straight, and maybe a bit of a mess, but it was their family, and there was nothing more important than that.


End file.
